


ulalume

by dreadfulbeauties



Category: Bloodborne (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Child Abuse, Gen, M/M, Pre-Canon, autistic laurence (bloodborne), it's my favorite bloodborne character and i get to project my neurodivergence onto him, rating may go up because of violence and gore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 01:01:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29751711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreadfulbeauties/pseuds/dreadfulbeauties
Summary: If you douse the flames and gaze past the ornate robes of the First Vicar, you find that beneath the exterior beats the heart of one very lonely, very scared child.
Relationships: Eventual Laurence/Ludwig (Bloodborne)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 4





	ulalume

In spite of being told he’s too old for such nonsense, Laurence wants to believe in ghosts.

He lies solitary in bed, the heavy quilt drawn over him. Beyond the safety of this old house thunder growls, raindrops tap like bony fingers upon the wide glass window of his room akin to a stranger requesting entrance. Perhaps if he closes his eyes he can imagine the ghosts creeping about his room and pinpoint a source to the background noise, even if it’s one he made up.

When he closes his eyes he sees his mother resting her hand upon the swell of her stomach heavy with child, and there is a gentleness to her that Laurence does not recognize — or rather, he does not recognize the consistency. Her movements are slower, her words softer. Laurence has to play guessing games for the most part with Mama, because she is the same woman who will tuck him into bed and kiss him goodnight or smash wine glasses in his direction; he never knows which she will take.

Father was more steady, more predictable. He tries to reason with Mama ( _There’s nothing wrong with Laurence, you don’t have to fix him, you need to go easier on him_ ) but once she gives him a look that’s sharp enough he quiets down. With Father, Laurence knew if he was angry but did not have to fear escaping unscathed. Father would not crush him in his arms to get him to stiffen into silence when the noise was too much and Laurence couldn’t help but sob, or tell him that he was not allowed to leave the table until he finished dinner, or tell him that without his help he was nothing. Father was something like safety.

Was.

There’s another reason why Laurence wants to believe in ghosts. The ghosts of the stories he reads at night are translucent specters, trapped on this plane to wreak havoc on the living. Sometimes they are there to curse whichever family occupies the house, vengeful and spitting and rotting. But other times they are simply a reminder of what once was. He wishes ghosts were real ever since a few days ago, when the doctor stepped out of Father’s room grim-faced. Some sort of illness he caught just a few weeks ago, he’d explained to Laurence and their mother, and at first it had disguised itself as something far milder. It was an issue with his blood.

_Amelia._ That’s what Mama wants to name her babyif she’s a girl, if her child is a boy she would name him Holger. They will never know Father and Laurence wishes it weren’t so. But in spite of his uselessness, he must make sure that Mama’s bad days never reach his younger sibling. He’ll play his part. He’s eight years old. He’s not that young anymore.

He allows himself one small bit of selfishness and lets it spread over him like another layer of blankets: Perhaps the creaking of this old house is his father’s dragging footsteps, a ghost wandering through the halls of the once-grand family home he’d resided in because he misses his wife and son. He never got to meet his new child. He’s never going to cradle them in his arms or listen to their gurgling laugh or watch either of his children grow up.

If he wants to cry, Laurence thinks, now is the time to do it. Father’s dead. He didn’t cry during the funeral, let alone around Mama — he didn’t want Mama to see it and have one more weakness of his to memorize. He doesn’t want to be annoying or more of a chip on her shoulder than he already is. Even though there was a lump in his throat and a pain in his chest (too much dull chatter at the funeral, too many figures floating around in black crowding in, he wanted to slip away but couldn’t, his ears felt like they were melting and when he tried to speak there was no sound) Laurence wouldn’t let himself cry. He couldn’t tell then if it was because of Father or because of the crowd that had gathered, but now he thinks it must have been both.

Yet he doesn’t cry, even though now is the right time. He’s too tired.

In two days he’ll be whisked off to school at Byrgenwerth. The grown-ups in his life tell him how lucky he is to be there — what an intelligent little boy, they all titter, an old soul so lost in his books who will flourish at a place like Byrgenwerth, the best place in all of Yharnam. Isn’t he already quite the little scholar? He even looks like one, the grown-ups say, with the large spectacles in front of his brown eyes, and how his red hair looks as though it’s rarely combed properly. Mama reminds him most of all how lucky he is, how he should be grateful that she has the wealth and that she’s taught him enough so that he deserves to be there.

He is lucky. And he is grateful. But what will school be like knowing that when he sends letters back home, Father won’t respond? Mama is seven months pregnant, he won’t be there to see his younger sibling be born. Everything’s happening far too quickly — there is a river Laurence is drowning in and the rocks are too smooth for him to cling onto.

_I know I’m a disappointment and that so much of what I do is wrong. That’s what Mama tells me — she says she’s sorry and that it was the wine, but I know she’s right. I just have to stop being a disappointment._

He rolls around on the bed, reaching for his stuffed rabbit. He likes this rabbit, because it was the one he got for his eighth birthday — Mother gave it to him as a gift, so surely she must be right if she was nice enough to give him a gift.

_What if I can’t stop being a disappointment?_

He squeezes his toy closer to him.

_I don’t know what will happen. But I have to make sure that it never, ever does._

When Laurence falls asleep that night he dreams of ghosts.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm going to try and update this once a month at the very least. i think i want to get better at writing longer fic.
> 
> i write this as an autistic teenager, and i'm drawing from a lot of my own experiences when it comes to portraying my version of laurence. more specifically, we share a lot of similar special interests and exhibit some of the same forms of stimming, and deal with the same sorts of sensory discomforts. 
> 
> laurence, unfortunately, has what many of us call an Autism Mom: instead of hearing her child out on things such as sensory overload or taking his discomforts into consideration, she dismisses him and insists that he's being too sensitive, forcing him to remain in situations that are distressing or uncomfortable for him in an attempt to make him act more "normal". or in shorthand: outright abuse.
> 
> (for the record: this is not the situation with my mother, who is much more understanding and a very lovely person - thank goodness. but i know far more about Autism Moms than i would like to, thank you very much.)
> 
> this fic will probably follow laurence from his early childhood to his last year at byrgenwerth before expulsion.
> 
> thank you for reading. comments are much appreciated.


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